Kiss Kiss Bang Dead
by Actual Princess Ray
Summary: It's sort of funny, in a really fucked up way, how at the moment that everything's supposed to go just right everything comes crashing down. It's also pretty damn hilarious how a man can drive himself insane trying to solve a case. Established Harry / Perry. Major Character Death.


inspired by an imagineyourotp prompt.

each chapter will be preceded by a short narration from Harry, in the spirit of the movie. the rest of this fic will be written in third person, without any commentary from Harry ( apart from thoughts included in the narrative, of course. )

Also. Bit of a boring chapter. Chant it with me friends, Exposition, exposition, exposition! Just a bit of "hey, this is what's going on, and what you've missed since the end of the movie. "

Like a prologue of sorts.

ok i tried to write this very casually i hope i succeeded.

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><p><em>So, you guys remember the story I told you, right? Before Perry so <em>rudely_ interrupted me, shutting the camera off, all that jazz. You guys don't need me to retell all of that, right? I mean, if you do — go rewatch the damn movie, I don't have time for that shit.  
><em>_Alright. Assuming you remember the movie, I'm hoping you remember where it left off: I'd gotten a job working under Perry. Remember that? Great. Okay.  
><em>_That was, eh, I'd say, about five years ago? Damn, time goes fast.  
><em>_Off track, right. Okay, so, basically, that was five years ago, and I'm gonna say it was about four years, four months, and twenty eight days ago that we started dating.  
><em>_Yeah, yeah, you heard me right. Get all the giggling out of your system. Good? Moving along.  
><em>_I'm not gonna get into the specifics on how this pairing started — not yet, anyways, it's not really that important yet. Remind me to come back to that.  
><em>_Point is, We've been dating for almost four and a half years. That's when shit started going downhill.  
><em>

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><p>Now, when Harry said things <em>started going downhill<em>, he didn't mean to say his relationship. No, no, he and Perry were very happy.  
>Very… domestic, to put it into a sort of perspective.<br>Living with Perry at first, well, it wasn't the absolute highlight of Harry's life. Perry was a smartass — but it wasn't as if Harry wasn't already aware of that. He knew damn well what he was getting into when he accepted the offer to move in ( hell, it was rent free, how could he really complain? )  
>He didn't really have all that much of a problem dealing with the quips ( which had become much more frequent, of course, after moving in. ), with the exception(s) being when he had to respond to them <em>first thing in the fucking morning.<br>_Credit where it's due, however, and Harry got used to them pretty quickly. Nearly four years later, doing so had just become second nature to him.

As Harry has already made very clear, they'd been dating for just under four and a half years, and it was around maybe eight months before they decided to just share the same room.  
>On the plus side, they didn't have to worry about having to move things from one place to another, just down the hall. On the other, were it up to Harry, he would've moved into Perry's room much earlier.<br>But it wasn't up to Harry. And Perry made him wait that long for a _reason_. Call it, _emotional_ self preservation, if you will. Perry knew what it was like to date guys who were _"usually"_ straight. And he knew well that it wouldn't be until the "honeymoon phase" ( _God, they both hated that phrase )_ was over that they'd realize, _oh shit, I made a huge fucking mistake._ And that would be the end of that.  
>In Perry's experience, well, that usually happened not too long after they moved in, started sharing a room.<br>Harry, well, Perry really cared about him. He wasn't even really comfortable with the _I love you_'s yet. And well — that's where the whole self-preservation shit came in.  
>What made Harry smile the most? The fact that, after dating 10 months, he was positive that the dry-witted personality was 100% genuine, and that even while they were dating, nothing was going to cause that to falter.<br>Not that he really doubted it. For all he'd joke about Perry being _incredibly_ predictable, things like that — _do you trust me?, is this the __**real**__ you? _(as cliche as they sounded)— those were the things that put Harry on the edge, that threw him. No need, however, while he was learning something new about partner every day, he never _changed_.

_I never knew you were such a romantic_.  
>Harry'd heard that maybe three times by the eighteenth month. You'd think, after dating for, oh, only <strong>over a year<strong>, Perry'd have figured that yeah, Harry was kind of a romantic at heart.  
>The first time he'd heard it, was when Harry actually planned a date. That's not to imply that Harry didn't <em>try<em> to plan them — rather, cases got in the way, and, well, none of the plans _either_ of them made ever really ended up working out.  
>Dinner would have to do. It was cute. It was two months into their relationship.<p>

The second time was when Harry said _I love you_. There would always be something different between the times that they'd said it during sex and the first time that Harry'd said it when he was falling asleep on Perry as they were watching some stupid movie or other on the couch.  
>The brunet was more than just <em>half <em>asleep, and laying on the detective, when he said it. Were he more alert, he probably would've felt the man tense up. He'd stayed awake long enough to hear Perry say (somewhat sarcastically) something about _how romantic_, before he fell asleep. He didn't stay awake long enough to hear Perry say it back.  
>He said it for the first time just before their year anniversary. ( He hadn't stopped saying it since. )<p>

The third time was the stupid mistletoe. Honestly, it was a joke. He was bored, and you know what, Harry was babysitting his niece, and she said she always wanted to see one hanging up — were there even people who did that anymore?  
>Go figure Perry'd find it and take it seriously, albeit it with a somewhat disbelieving smile. Well, no. Disbelieving isn't quite the word. Really, Harry couldn't quite describe the emotion that Perry was trying to convey. A mix of disbelief, sarcasm, maybe just all around finding Harry's antics ridiculous, you get the idea.<br>Nonetheless, with something akin to a sigh, and a hint of a smile, Perry pulled Harry into the doorway and kissed him, muttering something about him being _a romantic_ as he pulled away.  
>That was about eighteen months into their relationship.<p>

Two years and three months into it, they went public.  
>Harmony, as always, put on a marvelous performance, <strong>acting<strong> surprised when Perry told her. ( Did you honestly think that Harry wasn't telling her all of this without Perry knowing? Of course, Harmony was the very first person to know that they were dating, first person to know **everything**. She was his confidant, and he hers — it had always been like that. )

_Ah yes_, if you're wondering what happened with Harmony, it didn't work out. They tried to make it work out, they really did, but their relationship stayed purely platonic. Almost familial, in honesty. It didn't end with a fight or a bang (literally or figuratively speaking) or anything like that. It was just _over_, and that was that. There was about a six, maybe seven month gap between the end of that relationship, and the beginning of the one between Harry and Perry. And Harmony couldn't be any happier.

You'd think that "things getting worse" would've constituted the fact that _shit_, Harry had to deal with the homophobia that Perry had to face, too.  
>No, that wasn't where things went to shit.<p>

It was on the fourth year, fourth month, and twenty ninth day that they'd been dating that everything came crashing down on Harry Lockhart's life. The day that Harry had intended to propose ( there's that stupid romantic coming out. Fuck him. ), that his life was shattered.

And _no_, I'm going to stop you right there. It wasn't because Perry said _no_, or because he decided to end the relationship. Speaking on Harry's behalf, get that romance drama bullshit out of here. I already said, it sure as hell wasn't their relationship that went downhill.


End file.
